The Captain's Web
by CrlkSeasons
Summary: I couldn't believe that Chakotay and Tuvok would give up before tracing that comm glitch back to Tom's console in the episode, Disease. Maybe they didn't. Set between the episodes, Disease and Warhead.


The Captain's Web 

"Dismissed!"

The meeting over, Voyager's senior officers gathered themselves to leave the briefing room.

"Mr. Paris!"

Tom Paris had started toward the exit along with the rest of the senior staff. At the sound of the Captain's voice, he stopped and turned back to face her.

"Are you up for a game of pool? Say, two games out of three for a week's worth of replicator rations?"

Tom was startled. The Captain rarely challenged anyone to a game of pool, never while on duty. Something was up. He glanced around the briefing room, trying to pick up clues from the reactions of the others. Ckakotay and Tuvok continued out as if the Captain hadn't spoken. Whatever was going on, they already knew all about it. Seven exited as well. That wasn't any help. Seven wouldn't blink if a warp core exploded in front of her. Harry and B'Elanna hesitated and exchanged curious looks. The Captain eyed them expectantly and they hastily resumed their departure. No help there either.

"I'm usually ready to try my luck, Captain. Right now, though, I'm a little short of rations."

"I checked your allotment, Mr. Paris. You have a week's worth of rations left, barely. Why the hesitation? Not up to the challenge?" she asked, smiling.

Tom's eyes sparkled. _There_ was a word he could rarely resist. "You're on, Captain."

"Holodeck Two, 18:00. Don't be late."

All that had been several hours ago. It was almost 18:00 now. Sandrine's was running on Holodeck Two. It was a well-worn program, as comfortable as Tom's favorite vest. The entire crew used this program. They had made their own changes over the years. The smoky atmosphere was long gone. People complained that it made their eyes water. "No respect for tradition!" Tom protested, to no avail.

Many of the original characters had gradually faded from general use, much as the more obvious baggage from Tom's past had faded from view. Even the pool table was often displaced when the crew wanted to use the space for other activities. Tonight the pool table was back where it belonged. Tom ran his hand lovingly along the smooth surface of the side rail. Then he set up for another pressure position drill.

"Practicing, Tom?" The Captain's question announced her arrival.

"I may enjoy a challenge, Captain. But, I know enough to get in some extra practice before playing _you_. My game has gotten a little rusty these past few months."

"Wise precaution. It's good to see that you're planning ahead. Ready to lose those rations?"

"Only if you are," he returned.

The outcome could have been predicted. If Tom's skills were a little rusty, the Captain was at the top of her game. She won the lag break and stayed in control of the first game. It's a myth that good players invariably run the table. But she seemed absolutely focused on her game, determined to win. Many on the crew would feel intimidated, playing the Captain. Tom more than responded to the challenge. He had no intention of letting her win. Tom fought back to take the second game as his touch started to come back.

"That's something that I admire about you, Tom. You don't give up easily. Do you think you can keep it up?"

"It's anybody's game, Captain." Tom was enjoying the match. Since the Captain didn't play that often anymore, this was a rare opportunity to stretch himself and improve his game.

The third game was close. The Captain had too much respect for pool etiquette to talk during his turn. But when it was her turn, she casually mentioned a glitch that had appeared in the communication system a few weeks ago when they were in contact with the Varo generational ship.

"Oh?" Tom commented, suddenly on alert. A few weeks ago Harry had sent an unauthorized transmission to Darrin Tal, a beautiful Varo engineer with whom Harry had become intimate. Tom was working on the bridge when Tuvok picked up Harry's signal. Tom had done some fancy finger work to disrupt the trace back to Harry.

"Apparently there was interference from one of the other ship's systems. Tuvok has an idea that the problem originated in one of the bridge consoles, maybe even the helm. However, we've all been busy with other things lately, so I asked him to wait before checking into it any further." She sent the cue ball into an impossible position and turned the table over to Tom.

This was getting too close for comfort. Tom missed his shot and watched the Captain make short work of the rest of the table. She had to know that the signal trace had been deliberately sabotaged. He only hoped that she didn't think that Harry was involved. The whole point of interfering with Tuvok's investigation of the signal had been to keep Harry out of trouble. He had to let her know that he alone was responsible. Decision made, he straightened his shoulders and prepared to make his confession. "Captain, there's something I think I should tell you…"

"No. I don't think there is," she interrupted before he could get any further.

"I beg your pardon?" Tom was genuinely confused now.

"I didn't challenge you to this match to have you tell me something that would then have to go on the record," she explained. "I think there's been enough put in the official record lately."

Tom ran quickly through all the explanations that he could think of. Then he gave up and asked, "Captain, why _are_ we here? What's going on?"

"We are here, Tom, so we can talk off the record," the Captain explained. "What's going on is that you are now short one week's worth of replicator rations and you also know that it is not a good idea for unexpected glitches to show up on bridge consoles."

Realization sank in. "I understand."

"Good. But there is one more issue that we need to discuss."

Tom decided that his wisest course of action right now was just to listen.

"You and Harry have been good friends for a long time. When Harry first came on board, he was quite new and inexperienced. You went to a lot of trouble to protect him, to keep him from making any really bad mistakes. Over the years, Harry's changed. You've been willing to let him change. You stepped back from your big brother role. You encouraged him to speak up for himself. You supported him when he started to be more assertive. It takes a good friend to do that. You've been a good friend to Harry. But, I think sometimes it's easy for old habits to resurface. I know it's hard to stand by and watch Harry make mistakes. But, you can't protect him from making mistakes and you can't protect him from their consequences. You have to let people make their own mistakes. That's how they learn. That's how they grow."

Tom understood what she was trying to tell him. But his primary concern was still to avoid getting Harry dragged into any more trouble. "Harry's always been a by-the-book officer," Tom said, standing up for his friend. "Up until the incident with Tal, he had a perfect record. I think I may have been a bad influence on him."

The Captain considered him carefully. After a moment she surprised him by asking, "Who do you think is a better officer, Lt. Commander Tuvok or Commander Chakotay?"

"Is this a trick question, Captain? I have a feeling that it's going to get me into a lot of trouble."

"No trouble, Tom. Off the record, remember? Mr. Tuvok has a more orthodox record for following Starfleet protocol. Do you think he would have made a better First Officer than Commander Chakotay?"

"They're both good officers. Tuvok usually follows protocol more closely," Tom said, thinking it through. "Both of them have bent the rules on occasion. It's hard to say. I guess I can't imagine anyone doing a better job as First Officer than Chakotay has done since Voyager got pulled into the Delta Quadrant. They're just … different," he finished uncertainly.

"I agree, Tom." Before he could say anything more, she continued. "When the two crews first joined together, who had a better record for following Starfleet protocol, B'Elanna or Joe Carey?"

Now Tom was really taken aback. He foresaw dangers ahead for his love life in this one. "Captain, now you're really going to get me into trouble. If this gets back to B'Elanna …"

"Between us, Tom," she assured him.

"Okay, if you promise not to tell B'Elanna."

"Captain's honor, Mr. Paris," she promised solemnly.

"Joe Carey. I'd have to say Joe Carey, no question."

"And yet, B'Elanna is my Chief Engineer," she pointed out.

"B'Elanna is such an amazingly talented engineer … " Tom began.

The Captain interrupted him again. "Yes, she is an exceptional engineer. But, she would have still been a talented and valuable addition to Engineering even if she hadn't been made Chief. You've gotten to know Joe Carey over the years. Don't you think that, in time, he would have been able to work B'Elanna into his department?"

"Joe's done a great job. I admire the way he's supported B'Elanna and helped to keep the department running smoothly all these years. I know they've become good friends. Yeah, I'd have to say that it would have worked out with Joe in charge, eventually."

"Think about it," she told him. "I chose Chakotay to be my First Officer and B'Elanna to be my Chief Engineer even though Mr. Tuvok and Mr. Carey both had better Starfleet records."

Then she explained something that good Starfleet Captains often had to figure out for themselves. "A perfect record can be a valuable asset to a young officer. But, when a Captain sees a seasoned officer who is still holding on to that kind of record, she sees an officer who might be too limited to look beyond proscribed protocol or too timid to risk doing anything that would reflect poorly on that record. Captains begin to question whether those officers can be counted on do what's best for the ship, or if they will instead only do what looks good on their record."

She paused to give Tom time to digest this. "Maybe Harry's been a little _too_ by-the-book," she suggested. "Concern about keeping a clean record could inhibit him from taking risks. No one should be afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes only destroy us if we let them. In time, Harry's perfect record would have become as heavy a burden to him as a spare console hanging around his neck. Now that he doesn't have that perfect record anymore, he's free to grow into the kind of officer that he's capable of being. I don't consider that a bad thing, Tom. So I don't see how you can say that you've been a bad influence. It's not always a bad idea to break rules."

At Tom's pointed look, she amended this. "At least to bend them, as long as you know when you need to follow them too." The Captain smiled at Tom. "Harry's very lucky to have you for a friend."

Then she went on with a sterner expression. "So, no more foolish gestures. No more sacrificing yourself to protect Harry. You've made mistakes and you've learned from them. Trust Harry to make his own mistakes and to learn from the consequences of those mistakes. You're a stronger person than you once were. You've become a better officer without having to turn into Tuvok or Harry or me. I expect a lot from you. I expect you to be yourself and to be the best officer that you can be."

She watched his face, searching for something that she hoped to find there. After a moment she nodded, satisfied with what she had seen. "I'll see you on the bridge tomorrow. I think we'll be too busy to ever find out for sure where that glitch originated. As long as it doesn't show up again, I don't think it's a problem."

"Thank you, Captain."

The Captain stepped back, signally the end of their off-the-record meeting, and prepared to leave the holodeck. Tom delayed her exit with a question that he couldn't resist asking. "Captain, what if I'd won?"

She caught the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "Really, Mr. Paris, I have enough confidence in my game not to be concerned about that possibility. Besides," she went on, her own eyes twinkling with humor, "I had a couple of weeks to get in some practice of my own."

Tom winced at this information. "Why do I feel like the fly that flew into the spider's web?"

"Is that another Arachnia joke, Mr. Paris?" she asked. She had heard many subtle, and some not so subtle, references to spiders in the days following her stint as Dr. Chaotica's Spider Queen, with her absurdly clingy gown.

"Just an observation, Captain." Tom assured her.

"Well," she said, accepting, for now, that Tom's use of a spider web analogy was just a coincidence, "Maybe it's because you're very perceptive when you choose to be." Then, just in case the spider comment wasn't quite so unintentional after all, she added, "Be sure to enjoy Mr. Neelix's cooking. I hear there could be leola root stew on the menu tonight."

Tom groaned theatrically.

The Captain smiled smugly before walking out the doors of Sandrine's.

Tom made his way over to lean against the bar. He slowly surveyed the room, mentally preparing to close up for the evening. The he put away an errant glass and walked over to push in a chair at one of the tables. Satisfied, he went back to sit at the bar and contemplate recent events.

Finally, Tom sighed and shifted his attention to a more immediate concern, dinner. He wondered what really was on the menu tonight. He hoped it wasn't leola root stew. He didn't think that he could face that again for a long time. Maybe he could talk to Neelix about the menu.

"Oh no, Neelix. Damn!" He forgot that he had promised to pay Neelix back for the rations he borrowed last week for the monster movie marathon. Without this week's rations there was no way he could do that. "Wonderful!" Tom told himself. "Neelix is going to kill me when he finds out that I'm short of rations again. At this rate he'll put leola root stew on the menu every night for a week!"

It definitely did not pay to get caught in Arachnia's web.

The End

Author's notes:

1) This story follows up on events from the episode, Disease, but is set a few weeks later.

2) Tracking the story's comparison of officers back to the original Star Trek series, Kirk was the Captain not the generally more protocol oriented Spock.

3) This story addresses some of the criticism leveled at the Captain for marring Harry's perfect record. It also seeks to refute an old claim that Tom's mistakes disqualified him from consideration for promotion and that Harry's record of adhering to rules made him better senior officer material. When I first drafted this story, I had recently read a study that reported that the best CEOs turned out to be those who had experienced failure earlier in their careers. People who never had to overcome setbacks were better suited to middle management.

4) Neelix refers to the monster movie marathon and to Tom's poor record in repaying a loan for that event at the beginning of the Season Five episode, Warhead.


End file.
